One of my favorite movies is
“The Shawshank Redemption.”
It’s a bit corny, old-fashioned, sentimental and formulaic, but, boy, I dare
you not to fall for its emotional wallop in the end. One scene in particular
hovers in my mind, especially now.
It’s a conversion between
Andy, the Tim Robbins character, and Red, the Morgan Freeman character, both
inmates at prison in Maine in the 1950s. To summarize, Andy says that a person
must have hope. Red is having none of that, essentially saying that hope is a
dangerous thing.
I’m with Red on this one.
I’ve pretty much given up any hope of getting a full-time job ever again. You
see, I’ve passed that damning signpost of being out of work for six months. Once
again, I’ve become of a member of the “LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED” club. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)
That means, to HR drones and
potential employers, I have regressed to an infantile state in which I have
lost all ability to function, reason, play well with others, or master new
tasks. I have lost any capacity to learn new technology (okay, they may have me
on that one). Despite more than 25 years in my profession, I’m viewed as a
drooling moron because I’m now a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.) Add
to this scenario my advanced age and I’ve got two massive debits against me in
my futile quest to find gainful employment.
I’ve been here before. In
fact, since 2009, I’ve been out of a job for nearly two years. It’s amazing I
have any savings left at all.
Oh, and did I mention my
unemployment benefits have run out? (Cue
the horror-movie scream here.)
So perhaps you can
understand why I feel hopeless. I really don’t know what to do. It’s obvious
that in the minds of potential employers, I’m well past employable age and it’s
obvious they believe that because I’m A LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER I’ve lost
any intellectual competence.
I’ve picked up some
freelance assignments with middling success. (I fear I’m going to get fired
from one pretty soon. Serves me right for taking on a job for which I really
didn’t have the proper background.) In my current state of mind, I believe I’ll
fail at any job I try to do.
But the payments (when they
come in) are not going to support me. I’ve gone to a cheaper car insurance and
switched over to Obamacare (fingers crossed it works for me) to cut my
health-care premiums.
I have to pay rent and
utilities. I need cable to do or find work via the Internet. I can cancel my
newspaper subscriptions. I don’t shop for clothes anymore, just food and gas. I
live rather modestly so I don’t think there’s much else I can cut. I’ve already
accepted handouts from my cousins (they’re rich and can afford it), but still,
it’s a blow to my self-esteem to be seen as a charity case. I don't want charity, I want a job!
I may not have gotten
married and had kids, I may not have been amazingly successful in my career,
but I could always take pride in the fact that I put myself through school and supported
myself. Now even that has been taken away from me by some corporate bean
counter.
I can’t begin to describe
how disgusted, angry, anxious and dejected I feel at this point. But who would
care? Certainly not any potential employers. It’s not that I expect to get a
job out of pity (no employer does "pity" hires anyhow), but could they at least understand I haven’t lost my skills,
that I can still be a good worker, and that my jobless status was not of my own
making?
And it irks me to no end when
I hear people say, “You know, at your age it would be hard to get a job.” I
always feel like they are leaving off the next sentence. You know, something
like, “Glad I’m not you, Loser. I got a job.” What does that mean exactly? Do I
stop looking for work and live in poverty? Apparently that may be the only
option.
Though my best friend tells
me I shouldn’t blame myself for my unemployed status, that it was the economy
and the companies’ fault, I can’t help thinking in some way it was my fault. I also think some people
(like my own sister and all HR drones) believe that as well.
It’s hard not to think that
way. I cannot ignore the fact that in the past four years, when the company I
worked for had to slash its budget, I was let go, that I wasn’t good enough to
keep on staff while others were.
And when you are taken into
a room and told the company is having financial problems and it has to cut your
position, it’s hard not to internalize (sorry to use a hackneyed psychobabble
phrase) that devastating blow. To feel somehow I was to blame for the company’s
shortfall. I actually feel guilty for dragging the company downward. I mean, the implication is gut-wrenchingly clear: Your ginormous salary is dragging down the company (HA!) and you are worthless to us now.
Yeah, I know. That’s silly.
But that’s how I feel. Friends tell me to fight it, but with what? I have no
self-confidence left. It’s been destroyed by two layoffs in four years. By once
again becoming a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)
Except for this blog and
some conversations with my best friend, I really don’t express these feelings.
People only care about themselves anyway, certainly not some unemployed loser. U.S.
companies certainly don’t care; they can always smugly justify their massive
layoffs as just another business
decision.
I really don’t go out much
or socialize a lot. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed. It’s hard to go out and
see people enjoying themselves, eating at a restaurant. I don’t begrudge them,
but it’s just another reminder of something else I can’t afford, like pedicures and hair cuts.
Just as hard is hearing
people talk about vacations or seeing beach photos posted by friends on
Facebook. Can’t say I’m a world traveler, but I wonder if I’ll ever go on
vacation again. Heck, I can't even afford a tank of gas to drive to the mall!
So, what now? Sure, I could
apply for a retail job, but would I get hired? That’s how low my self-confidence
had sunk. Training? With what money? I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up homeless
in six months. There is no help for unemployed workers like me. Corporate
America has cast us out, and our nation’s social safety net has no provision
for us.
I wish I could stop having
these unsettling dreams, dreams in which I’m lost within labyrinth-like city
streets darkened by towering skyscrapers, trying frantically to find the door I
have to go through. I never find that door. Or the dreams where I’m running
after a bus and it keeps going and going and going, ever faster beyond me,
never stopping to let me board.
Already I’ve begun to clear
my apartment of unwanted papers and items, to get rid of stuff I no longer need
or want. (Better to have less stuff when I move to the homeless shelter,
right?) Every time I do it, though, I also feel like I’m receding from the
world bit by bit, a world that apparently no longer has a place for me.
Whenever I think I could be
hired for a job, I quickly stop myself. Like Red, I can’t allow myself
to believe in the ethereal myth of hope. It hurts too much when I’m rejected or I fail.
I’m sorry for the downcast
tone of this post. But unlike “The Shawshank Redemption,” I don’t see a happy
ending.